


Before you say something real

by heydoeydoey



Series: The Great WIP Project [3]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Headcanon, Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, a smidgeon of angst, but like...barely any, but you don't need to have watched that for it to make sense, guys i don't even know, picks up sometime after Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this is complete and utter self-indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22741012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: Finn’s visa is soon to expire and, well, Colin does have half a wedding already planned.
Relationships: Finn/Colin McCrae
Series: The Great WIP Project [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536397
Comments: 11
Kudos: 44





	Before you say something real

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to part 3 of The Great WIP Project of 2020, aka the Colin/Finn fic literally nobody asked for. Mostly I wrote this because I wanted to read it, so here's hoping you all enjoy it! 
> 
> Title is borrowed from "I Always Knew" by The Vaccines.

“The fucking US government!”

As opening lines go, it’s not one of Finn’s best. The blonde at the bar looks more alarmed than interested and she’s already edging away from Finn, back towards her friends. 

“Oh, don’t go, darling,” Finn calls after her, but it’s already a lost cause. Colin might feel sorry for him, if he weren’t so busy feeling sorry for himself. That’s the whole reason they’re even out tonight, so Colin can drown his sorrows. And so Jennifer can move her things out of their apartment. (His apartment? Technically speaking, its Colin’s name on the lease and all the utility bills, but Jennifer had chosen it, and he’s only lived there with her.) 

In all honesty, Colin’s not totally sure how they ended up engaged in the first place, so he probably should be less surprised that they aren’t anymore. But it had still come as a shock to find her waiting for him yesterday afternoon, her suitcases packed and the ring they picked out two months ago back in its box. 

“You don’t want to get married,” she’d said, “and I’m tired of watching you pretend.”

Colin had tried to insist he wasn’t pretending. They’d already set a date, and paid so many nonrefundable deposits to caterers and venues and car rental companies and…well, Colin doesn’t actually care. It’s only money, which he has more of, and they hadn’t sent out save the dates yet, so they’re at least spared _that_ embarrassment.

Finn drops back into the seat next to him and swaps Colin’s half-empty gin and tonic for a fresh one.

“Don’t look so miserable,” Finn says. “At least _you_ aren’t getting kicked out of the country.”

“This wouldn’t be happening if you’d turned your renewal paperwork in.”

“I did turn it in,” Finn pouts. “But apparently you can’t claim to be an alien with extraordinary abilities without any actual extraordinary abilities.”

Colin doesn’t state the obvious, that if Finn would just put that Yale Drama degree to use, if he would go on auditions and actually _perform_ once in a while, this wouldn’t be quite the issue it’s become. 

“Clearly they’ve never seen you drink,” he says instead.

“That’s what I said,” Finn grins, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He takes a long pull on his drink. “Enough about me. Shall we find you a lovely lady to take your mind off the fair Jennifer?”

Colin shakes his head. “No.”

“No?” Finn asks, incredulous, and reaches for his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m texting Logan. He won’t believe it.”

“Finn, it’s four in the morning in London, don’t text him.”

Finn does it anyway.

Colin likes to pretend he can still drink the way he did in college. He can’t. Neither can Finn, really, although it would probably break his heart if Colin told him so. They stagger into a cab, and Colin mostly focuses on not puking for the duration of the ride to Finn’s place. 

Finn leans on him heavily in the elevator of his building, and one of Finn’s neighbors, the snobby one with the yappy chihuahua who lives on the fourth floor, eyes them disdainfully while clutching her dog to her chest like Colin or Finn will try to snatch it from her. 

“Don’t wanna go back to Australia.” Finn mumbles, his face mashed against Colin’s shoulder. 

“I know.”

“Mum will be so smug. And bloody Henry will be unbearable.”

Finn’s brother is a professional rugby player. He’s already pretty unbearable.

“What else can you do?” Colin asks, as Snobby Chihuahua Owner exits on her floor. 

“Get married.”

Colin snorts. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. Only thing left.”

Colin tries to imagine Finn married and can’t help laughing. 

“You mock my pain.” Finn grumbles as they disembark the elevator on his floor and move slowly down the hallway. 

His apartment, as usual, is a mess and Colin nearly trips over Finn’s skis in the living room. Finn hasn’t been skiing since their trip to Whistler over a year ago, when Colin tore his ACL.

“Maybe you need a wife,” Colin says, shoving the skis out of the way. “You wouldn’t live in complete squalor anymore.”

“How very 1950s of you.”

Finn flops dramatically onto his couch, his legs sprawled across the length of it. Colin shoves him over and wedges himself next to the arm. Finn plops his socked feet into Colin’s lap. 

“D’you think maybe Jennifer will have me?” Finn asks.

“Don’t.”

“I mean, clearly she’s desperate to get married if she said yes to you.”

“Nobody’s that desperate, Finn.”

“I take offense to that. I’m _delightful_.”

“Of course you are.”

“Don’t patronize me, McCrae.”

“How long have you got?”

“Six months.”

“That’s not a lot of time.”

“So you’re saying I should call Jennifer?”

“Finn!”

“What? She probably already has a dress, and the reception is booked—

“In my name.”

“So I should marry _you_ , then?”

“Yes,” Colin says, his mouth moving before his brain catches up. “I mean, no. You can’t marry Jennifer. Or me.”

“No, but think about it.” Finn says, sitting up and leaning closer to stare intently at Colin. Finn gets hyper-focused like this when he’s drunk sometimes, and it’s unnerving to everyone accustomed to his normal attention span (approximately two seconds. Like a goldfish.) “We should get married.”

“No.”

Finn holds up his fingers and starts ticking off reasons. “I won’t have to leave. You won’t be out thousands of dollars on deposits. Jennifer will be _livid_ —

“We’d be _married,_ Finn.”

Finn ignores him, “We can use it as an excuse to throw the _greatest_ party ever. All our friends will buy us gifts. You can move out of your terrible apartment and move in here.”

“What’s wrong with my apartment?” Colin protests feebly. His apartment _is_ terrible. They’d chosen it based on the proximity to Jennifer’s office, and Jennifer’s parents, and the ability of the closets to fit Jennifer’s wardrobe and shoe collection. Why isn’t _Jennifer_ keeping the fucking apartment?

“Everything.” Finn waves a dismissive hand. “But probably the best thing about getting married would mean neither of us ever ends up in a Jennifer situation again.”

“A Jennifer situation.”

“Yes. Some girl who thinks that just because you’ve been dating for ages, it means it’s time to get serious. Because we’ll already be taken.”

“Yeah. Because we’ll be married. To each other. Which you apparently don’t think is a big deal.”

Finn shrugs, because _of course_ Finn doesn’t think it’s a big deal. Finn just coasts through life, never sparing a second thought for the consequences of his actions or the carnage he leaves in his wake. 

And then, Finn’s expression breaks and he laughs.

“Oh, you asshole.” Colin punches his arm. “You fucking asshole!”

“You should see your face.”

“Yeah, well, your face would be stupid too if you were me.” Colin frowns. “Or if I were you. Oh, whatever. You know what I mean.”

Finn is still howling with laughter, tears running down his face now. “I can’t believe you bought that.”

Colin punches Finn’s arm again. “Okay, I’m a gullible idiot. So what’s your plan then, if it isn’t marrying me?”

Finn shrugs. “Haven’t got one. I’ll think of something.”

“You always do.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

* * *

The problem is, Finn doesn’t think of something. Not anything that will actually work and won’t end up with him deported or in jail, anyway.

And it’s Finn’s fault for planting the seed in Colin’s head, and a little bit his own fault for rushing things with Jennifer so much that now he’s got half a wedding already planned, but, well…maybe it isn’t such a terrible idea?

It’s still a _bad_ idea, definitely. And almost as illegal as Finn buying a counterfeit American passport online and just using a different accent any time INS comes looking for him. 

But it could buy them time for Finn to apply for a green card. Colin’s pretty sure his father has a cousin who’s an immigration lawyer and might even be able to speed the process up. Then Finn and Colin can get a quickie divorce and go back to their regular lives.

And it means Colin gets to keep his best friend, who is probably his _only_ friend. 

Oh, sure, there’s a whole crowd of them from Yale who still meet up and get wasted reminiscing about the old days or descend on small towns in Connecticut to wreak havoc all in the name of cheering a friend up, but the group is dwindling as they all start to get married and have kids and settle into actual adult lives. Even Logan is married now (and Colin lost a hundred bucks to Finn betting that wedding wouldn’t actually happen).

But Colin’s known Finn since they were fourteen, from the day Finn first arrived at Zugerberg, dropped his duffel bag on the bed next to Colin’s, and asked if he knew where to score the good drugs. Colin hadn’t, but Finn had shrugged it off and befriended him anyway. Finn was expelled six months later after an incident with the Headmaster’s car, two goats, and a truly staggering amount of alcohol, but he’d kept in touch as he bounced from Eton to Exeter, Harrow to Hotchkiss. Finn’s emails used to be one of the only things Colin had to look forward to and having Finn visit during summer breaks made his home and his half-siblings almost bearable for those two months. 

The summer Finn went back to Australia instead had been the worst of Colin’s life. 

Which doesn’t bode well for him if they don’t find a solution to Finn’s visa problem. 

* * *

“We should get married.” Colin says. They’re sitting on Finn’s couch, eating Chinese takeout and watching _Inglourious Basterds_ for probably the fiftieth time. 

“Hmm,” Finn says, more focused on the movie and trying (and failing) to successfully maneuver a piece of orange chicken into his mouth with chopsticks than listening. Colin passes him a fork instead.

“Cheers,” Finn nods, and begins to shovel rice into his mouth with the fork in his left hand while still attempting to use chopsticks with his right.

“Finn!”

“What? I didn’t spill anything.”

“Will you marry me?”

Finn does spill then, knocking over the carton of orange chicken and for a few minutes they do nothing but scramble to contain the mess.

“That joke is only funny when I make it,” Finn frowns, tossing a balled up paper towel on the coffee table. 

“I’m not joking.”

“Colin.”

“What? It’s not like I’ve been secretly harboring some decades-long crush. You don’t want to leave, I don’t want you to leave, and this is the only way I can see for you to stay.”

“There’s always Rosemary.” 

Colin rolls his eyes. “There’s never been Rosemary.”

“This could’ve been my moment!”

“You sure you want to bank your immigration status on Rosemary?”

“Ah. Fair point.”

“So?”

Strangely, Colin feels more nervous waiting for Finn’s answer that he did waiting for Jennifer’s. 

“Okay.” Finn nods. 

“We’re going to have to do this right.” Colin says.

“Right?”

“This is illegal. We could end up in prison.”

“Your father would get you off the hook.”

“Yours wouldn’t.”

“I’m too pretty for prison.”

“Well, then we need to make sure everyone believes it’s real.”

* * *

It’s almost too easy. They tell Colin’s family first, mostly because Colin is expected at his father’s home for dinner at least monthly anyway, and Colin’s family _likes_ Finn. They’ve always liked Finn. 

“Engaged?” Colin’s latest stepmother asks, her wineglass halfway to her mouth. Her name is Elizabeth and she’s only six years older than Colin. He doesn’t like to think about that too much.

She frowns, “What about Jennifer? You were engaged to her practically last week.”

“I just couldn’t let that happen,” Finn says with a dramatic gravitas only he could get away with. Colin’s sixteen-year-old half-sister Ivy sighs dreamily. “I had to tell Colin how I feel about him.”

“About time,” Colin’s father snorts. “You two have been pining over each other for years.”

Colin’s reflex is to argue, because _really._ He hasn’t been _pining_. Does everyone think he’s been _pining_? Does he give off some kind of lovesick, pining vibe towards his best friend after whom he is neither lovesick nor pining?

Finn curls his hand around Colin’s on top of the table and squeezes tighter than strictly necessary, probably in an attempt to keep Colin from protesting vehemently. 

“We have,” Finn agrees. “It just took Colin nearly marrying someone else for us to realize it.”

And Colin’s father, who cares far more about being right than he does about the sexual orientation (whether real or faked for a green card marriage) of any of his children, raises his glass in a toast.

“To Colin and Finn,” he says.

“To Colin and Finn,” Elizabeth and Ivy echo, while Colin’s insufferable twin brothers Callum and Hugo snigger into their sodas. They’re fourteen and the worst of Colin’s five siblings. (He probably dislikes Ivy least, and he almost never has to see Peter or Caitlin since they’re both in college.)

“The wedding’s November fourth,” Finn announces, after everyone has finished clinking glasses. 

“Can I be a bridesmaid?” Ivy asks hopefully. “Joanie Featherstone was a bridesmaid last year at her sister’s wedding and she won’t shut up about it, like it makes her so special. She didn’t even get to wear a pretty dress, it was hideous.”

“There won’t be bridesmaids, idiot,” Hugo scoffs. 

“Yeah, there isn’t a bride,” Callum joins in. “Just two gay dudes.”

Finn shoots the twins a dark look before turning to Ivy, “Of course you can be in the wedding, darling. And we can do far better than a hideous dress.”

“Let’s not invite Callum and Hugo,” Colin says in the car on the way back to Finn’s apartment. (He’s mostly moved into the second bedroom already. He was not joking about doing this right. He might not be as pretty as Finn, but he’s still not cut out for prison either.)

“They’re such twats. Can we ship them off with your mum?” 

In addition to being his worst siblings, Callum and Hugo are also his only full siblings, the product of his parents’ attempt at reconciliation, which had lasted until the twins were four and then Colin’s mother had left. Again. 

“I imagine my mother will expect to attend the wedding.”

“Will she?” Finn looks surprised. “She hasn’t been there for any of the other milestones in your life.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“Sorry, darling. You know I sympathize. My mum isn’t any better. Textbook mommy issues, the pair of us.”

Colin sighs. “How do you want to tell _your_ family?”

“Can we just…not?”

“If we had to tell mine, we have to tell yours.”

“They won’t be supportive of our love. They’ll say terrible things. They’ll refuse to come to the wedding.”

“Don’t be a drama queen.”

“But darling, don’t you love me just the way I am?”

“No.”

* * *

Once their save the date cards go out, their friends begin to respond in kind. Rosemary sends the first gift: an embarrassingly large gift basket of lube, condoms, and sex toys. _I always knew you two were overcompensating for something_ , her note inside reads, and Finn laughs delightedly and insists on leaving the basket on display on the coffee table for about three weeks.

Logan sends gin, Egyptian cotton sheets, and a print that reads _Lie Back and Think of England._ Colin wonders if that means Logan suspects the real reason they’re getting married. Either that, or their friends have an uncomfortable amount of interest in their (nonexistent) sex life. Naturally, Finn loves the print and hangs it up in his bedroom.

Gilmore sends a framed photo of the three of them from their last hurrah, one Colin doesn’t remember being taken. She’s in the middle, one arm thrown around each of them, smiling straight at the camera. He and Finn are looking at each other over the top of her head, grinning at one another like they’re sharing some secret joke. _About time you two made it official_ , Rory had written in the card. _And I guess we’ll be seeing each other soon after all._

Finn has too much fun building gift registries, and soon a KitchenAid mixer and a Vitamix blender and Le Creuset cookware and Wedgwood china begin to arrive, ordered online and shipped to them from their global network of boarding school friends. 

“Who’s going to use any of this?”

“Me,” Finn grins. “I’m going to be a fantastic househusband, you’ll see.”

“Maybe _I_ want to be the househusband.” 

“Do you know how to use any of these things?” Finn gestures to their new kitchen gadgets, still in their boxes, crowding the kitchen countertops.

“No, but neither do you.”

“But _you_ have a job, so you won’t have any time to learn.”

Colin’s job is more theoretical than anything. He’s one of the sons of McCrae and Sons, of course, but five years in, Colin would still rather watch paint dry than have anything to do with corporate real estate development.

Still, he has an office, and an assistant, and he’s signed many, many legal documents that mean he has a large share in the company. He sits in boardrooms through lengthy meetings where accountants drone about dividends and budgets, and he is slowly attending more functions and fundraisers, so that he will be familiar as the face of the company when his father retires. (Or dies. Andrew McCrae does not seem like the sort of man who will ever retire.)

“So I can expect dinner on the table every night when I get home from work, then?” Colin says.

“For someone engaged to a man, you’re very attached to traditional marriage roles,” Finn smirks. “Do you reckon it has something to do with the revolving door of stepmothers you had growing up?”

Colin’s reminded of freshman year, when Finn was a gender studies major (for about two minutes, before Drama scooped him up) and used to spout off things like this all the time. 

“No, I think it has more to do with marrying my best friend so he can get a green card and wanting to get some benefits from the situation.” 

“Darling, I’ll give you benefits,” Finn says and winks. “All you have to do is ask.”

Finn has always been like this, able to flirt with anything that moves, and Colin has never been sure how much intent is actually behind it. Finn will forever be the outrageous, flamboyant one of the group, and Colin assumed it was just for laughs, just because Finn could get away with pretty much anything thanks to his accent and his devil may care attitude.

He’s been thinking more and more lately maybe he’s had the wrong impression for a very long time, mostly because no one seems at all surprised that Colin and Finn are getting married.

He remembers, vaguely, Finn taking some shit at Zugerberg for the nail polish, and his mannerisms, and his compulsive need to flirt with anyone who spoke to him for longer than three seconds. If similar incidents happened at any of his other schools, Finn never said, and by the time they were at Yale no one really cared, and Finn was very vocally only chasing girls anyway.

But maybe Rosemary is right, and he was overcompensating. 

“Your father called yesterday.” Finn says, his head inside the refrigerator while he digs through their shelves stacked with takeout containers. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because he called to talk to _me_.” Finn emerges from the fridge with a slice of pizza he starts eating cold. Colin shudders—both at the thought of his father actively seeking Finn out and because he can’t remember when they ordered that pizza.

“Oh god. What did he want?”

“To throw us an engagement party.”

Colin tries to imagine that conversation and fails. “You’re joking.”

“Obviously,” Finn rolls his eyes. “He says you have to wear a kilt for the wedding, and he’s getting me a matching McCrae tartan tie.”

“Please still be joking.”

“I wish I were. I don’t want to see you in a kilt. Actually, no one wants to see you in a kilt.”

“Is it too late to elope?”

“Yes.”

“Can we burn the kilt?”

“He’ll just find you another.”

“Yes, but if some tragedy befalls it moments before the ceremony, he won’t have time to find another.”

Finn snorts. “Which means you’ll get married wearing nothing. Frankly, darling, that might be _more_ embarrassing than the kilt.”

“I’d bring pants, obviously.”

“No, you’ll be too hungover from our epic bachelor party to remember to bring pants in case of kilt tragedies. Honestly, I’m more alarmed about the matching tartan tie.”

“Jennifer was going to wear a sash. Do you want a sash instead?”

“Ooh, yes please.”

* * *

Finn’s mother, Mary, arrives and brings with her a worrying amount of luggage and enough disapproval to suck all the air out of their apartment. 

“How long is she staying?” Colin hisses, helping Finn haul a steamer trunk into the guest bedroom. Finn texted from the airport that his mother had not made hotel arrangements, and Colin spent a frenzied half hour moving all of his things into Finn’s room. If she asks for the grand tour and wants to see the walk-in closet, the game will be up because everything Colin owns is piled on the floor in there.

“I don’t know.” Finn shakes his head.

“Remind me again why you thought it would be better to tell her in person?”

“I didn’t think that.”

“Then why did you invite her?”

“Because I didn’t think she would actually come. Then I could capitalize on her guilt about not visiting to justify telling her I’m getting married via email, and then she would use that as a reason not to come to the wedding, and I could then hold a grudge about her not coming to the wedding, and we could easily go two more years without speaking and neither of us would be especially upset about that.”

“Finn, that’s insane.”

“Insane, but a tried and true method. I was expelled from and accepted to three consecutive schools without ever having to speak to my mother about it.”

“No,” Finn’s mother says sharply, appearing suddenly in the doorway behind them. “You called Daddy instead and let him fix it. Hardly a point of pride, Finn.”

Finn winces. Colin feels something like schadenfreude mixed with relief; his mother is equally difficult, but at least she isn’t here right now. 

“Now, what’s this about a wedding?”

“We’re getting married.” Finn says, dropping his half of the steamer trunk. Colin lets go of his too, and it lands with a heavy thump on the thick carpet. 

“Who’s we?” Mary asks. “Not this Rosemary you’ve always talked about? I got the impression that was rather more of a joke when I met her.”

A surprising spike of jealousy surges through Colin. He’s known Finn for nearly twenty years and this is the first time he’s been in the same room as Mary. “When did you introduce Rosemary to your mother?”

“Long story,” Finn hisses and shoots him an icy glare. “Colin and I are getting married, Mum.”

For a long moment, Mary does nothing but look from Colin to Finn and back again. She has the sort of piercing stare that makes Colin feel like she can read his mind and she can tell from one glance that this whole thing is a sham.

Then, she shrugs. “Can’t say I’m overly surprised. You’ve always been a bit swishy, haven’t you?”

“Mum!” Finn scowls. 

“When is the wedding?”

“November,” Colin says. “Only about six weeks from now, actually.”

“I suppose I can extend my trip.” Mary says. “I imagine you’ll need my help, anyway.”

“Actually, Mum—

“Of course, we’ll have to invite your father and Henry—

“Do we?”

Mary continues as if she hasn’t heard Finn’s protests. “Henry’s rugby schedule might not allow him to come—

“Pity,” Colin mutters.

“—but I see no reason your father shouldn’t get himself here. And Colin, dear, you’ll have to put me in touch with your parents, so we can iron out the finances.”

“Right.”

Mary dismisses them so she can rest and likely begin to re-plan their already planned wedding. Colin follows Finn dumbly back into his (their?) bedroom.

“She’s staying. For six weeks. With us.” Finn flops facedown onto the bed and grumbles something unintelligible. It may just be a scream muffled by the duvet. 

“Finn?”

Finn lifts his head off the mattress enough that Colin can hear him say, “She’s terrible.”

“She’s not so bad.” Colin says.

“Swishy,” Finn says and rolls onto his back, glaring up at the ceiling. “I’ve always been _swishy_. Maybe I should wear the fucking kilt. That’s what everyone will expect, right?”

“C’mon Finn, who cares what she said?”

“I do!” Finn turns his glare from the ceiling to Colin. “I’ve never been good enough for her. Not when there’s bloody Henry to compare me to. Nothing swishy about him.”

“Oh, fuck your brother. And your mother. It’s their problem if they think there’s a single thing wrong with you.”

Finn’s glare softens slightly. “Yeah?”

“Obviously.” Colin sits next to Finn. “You’re good enough for me, and you always will be.”

“Can you say that in front of my mum?” Finn asks. “She might revise her opinion on which of us is the swishy one.”

Colin snorts a laugh, “Sure. I’ll tell her I wear the kilt in our relationship, too.”

* * *

If Colin were to look back and pinpoint where things start to go a bit…wrong, the party Logan throws for them is probably to blame.

Colin and Finn get there late, delayed by a painful dinner with Colin’s father, Finn’s mother, and yet another argument over who would pay for what. Despite the fact that they’re supposedly the guests of honor tonight, the party has raged on without them. There is a staggering amount of booze, an alarming variety of drugs, and a frankly uncomfortable number of people crammed into Logan’s penthouse. Logan's neighbors must loathe him.

“Ehhhhhh!” Logan cheers when they come through the door. He’s sloppy drunk already, half the buttons on his shirt undone and a drink in each hand. Sloppy Drunk Logan is Colin’s least favorite Logan. “C’mere!”

Logan slings an arm around each of their necks.“I’m so happy for you,” He smirks, “I can’t believe you’re _finally_ getting married.”

Logan looks…not great. Aside from being drunk, he has that sort of unhinged look he had right before he jumped out of that plane in South America, grim and wild-eyed and lost. Back then, Colin always associated that look with _trouble in Gilmore paradise_ , but as far as Colin knows, Logan and Rory really did go their separate ways last spring in that B&B with hundreds of taxidermy creatures paying witness. 

Colin snags two drinks from a passing waiter, who’s wearing nothing but gold hot pants ( _all_ the waiters are men, and all of them are scantily clad, and Colin shouldn’t be surprised since “on the nose” is Logan’s specialty, but… _really._ ) and hands one to Finn, who downs it in two quick gulps. 

“I’m getting another.” Finn shouts over the thumping baseline of the music. Colin watches Finn weave through the crowd, until he loses him behind one of the pillars Logan had to have installed when he insisted on knocking down all the walls in the apartment. If Colin didn’t know better, he’d think he was back in Logan’s loft from their Yale days, actually. Even the suit of armor is still here, tucked into a corner. 

“Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know.” Logan says morosely into his empty glass. “You sure you want to go through with it?”

“Well, considering I _chose_ Finn, instead of letting my father pick him out, yeah I do.”

Logan flinches, but before he can get in a dig of his own, his attention wanders to something over Colin’s shoulder, and then he’s waving someone over, his expression shifting back to the pleasantly neutral one he saves for acquaintances. Even shitfaced, he’s still a Huntzberger. 

“James,” Logan grins, and reaches out to shake the newcomer’s hand. “Didn’t think you could make it. James, this is Colin, Finn’s fiancé. Colin, this is James.”

“Nice to meet you, Colin.” James is tall and blond and his face is one of those permanently smug English ones, with the big forehead and the smirky mouth and no chin to speak of, so Colin isn’t especially surprised when the next words out of his mouth are, “I couldn’t believe it when Logan told me Finn was engaged, but here we are.”

“Oh, how do you all know each other?”

James’ smirk widens. “He never mentioned me? Well, no, I suppose he wouldn’t. It was ages ago. We were both at Harrow for awhile. Logan too, although I don’t think he and Finn crossed paths until…Andover?”

“Exeter.” 

“Small world.”

“Isn’t it?” 

“Logan, your taste in gin is _abysmal_ ,” Finn announces, returning with an entire bottle of Bombay. “This is my party, I should have been consulted.”

“Finn Kelley, you never disappoint.” 

Finn startles. “James Halsey. What are you doing here?”

“Logan invited him.” Colin says. 

“Of course.” Finn smiles tightly. “I forgot you two know each other.”

“Yes, it seems I’m quite forgettable these days.” 

“I don’t know about that. Hard to forget the man who sank the crew team in the regatta against Eton.”

“I seem to remember someone else helping drill holes in the boat.”

“That sounds like our man Finn.” Logan laughs. “At Exeter he stole all the tennis team’s balls and used to throw them at people out the window of his room.”

“You really don’t like organized sports, do you?” Colin asks. “At Zugerberg you deflated all the soccer balls.”

Finn shrugged. “They were usually the people giving me hell, so…easy targets.”

Logan lopes off to greet the latest arrivals to the party, but James stays, clearly intent on reminiscing further about his and Finn’s days at Harrow. 

Something ugly and dark rises in Colin as he listens to Finn and James compare notes on their classmates and their various rule-breaking. He was already in a bad mood after dealing with their parents tonight, and now he’s here, at a party he doesn’t particularly want to be at, with friends of Logan’s he has no interest in knowing. 

He’s only half-listening, so he’s lost the thread of the conversation when James says, “I hope there are no hard feelings. It was so long ago.”

And Colin probably wouldn’t have even noticed, except Finn’s face shutters, and he says stiffly, “It’s ancient history, darling.” Finn takes a swig from the bottle of gin and stares determinedly at a spot over James’ shoulder.

James grins, and claps Finn on the back, and the ugly thing inside Colin wants to put both his hands on James’ chest and shove him away, but he can’t explain why except that Finn looks like he might throw up. 

But Colin isn’t actually a fighter, as much as he’d like to be at this moment. Instead, he touches Finn’s wrist lightly, “I’m going for a drink, you want anything?”

Finn joggles his bottle of gin, the liquid inside sloshing cheerily. “I’m all set for now.”

It takes Colin an interminable amount of time to get back. Everyone wants to congratulate him and hug him and ask how he and Finn _finally_ got together, like everyone they know has just been waiting for them to shack up. 

Finn is still talking to James. To a stranger he might look like he’s enjoying himself, but Colin can see the tense set of his shoulders and the way he keeps scanning the room behind James, looking for some kind of escape route. 

Or maybe just looking for Colin, because once he’s there, some of the tension seeps out of Finn and he leans into Colin’s side.

“How long have you two known each other?” James asks.

“Forever,” Finn shrugs, and Colin finds himself unwilling to correct or elaborate. Finn wraps an arm around Colin’s waist, pulling him closer. “Let’s dance, darling,” Finn says, and Colin takes the hint. James can’t exactly follow the guests of honor out onto the dance floor. Finn starts tugging Colin towards the middle of the apartment, where the furniture has been pushed out of the way to make room for dancing. 

Colin doesn’t dance, but Finn dances well enough to make it almost seem like Colin can keep up. Finn is right there, close enough that Colin can smell the smoke on his sweater from the cigarette he’d smoked after dinner (the stress smoking a habit he started somewhere after Zugerberg but before Yale and hasn’t been able to break), can see the darker ring around the blue of his eyes, close enough that Colin need only reach up a little and...

“Finn! Colin!” 

They both jump, and before Colin can react they’re being hugged by a very drunk Rosemary.

“I’m just so happy for you both,” she shrieks, and Colin’s pretty sure she ruptured his eardrum. “Juliet and I always wondered at Yale if you two were fucking.”

“We weren’t.” Colin says.

“More’s the pity,” Finn adds, and the low pitch of his voice sends a shiver down Colin’s spine. 

Rosemary laughs, “Oh, get a room.”

Finn insists on spinning Rosemary around the dance floor, flirting with her outrageously while he does. Colin finds himself a good corner to hide in with Finn’s gin while he has a quiet meltdown. 

He nearly kissed Finn. Finn is supposed to be his _platonic_ fiancé. Colin has no business kissing him, or _thinking_ about kissing him, or _wanting_ to kiss him. They’re doing this strictly for Finn’s visa. It’s a business transaction, plain and simple, and Colin needs to stop confusing it for anything else right now. 

“I see he found a better partner.”

Of fucking course, James is back.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” Colin says as evenly as he can manage. 

“It’s funny, I never pictured Finn the marriage type.”

“I didn’t get the sense you knew him particularly well.” 

James tries and fails to look sheepish. “I knew him well enough.”

“What does that mean?” Colin asks, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows.

“It’s really not my place. I’d hate to cause trouble,” he says with the air of someone who very much _would_ like to cause trouble.

“Tell me,” Colin insists.

“We fooled around quite a bit at Harrow. It all got rather messy, Finn thought it was more serious than it was…I had to break things off, obviously. Even then, he just wasn’t the sort you bring home. Or, well, I suppose _you_ would.” 

If Colin were Logan, he would’ve punched the smug out of James then and there. But Colin is Colin, so the best he can do is get the last word. “You’re right. I would.”

* * *

Finn’s mother is still occupying their guest room, and most nights, Finn’s king size bed is big enough to accommodate both of them. Colin had expected it to be more awkward than it has been, but he’s also shared beds with Finn before, smaller ones than this, in hotel rooms and dorm rooms around the world. So really, it’s not a big deal. 

Except tonight, when all Colin can think about is Finn a few feet away, pretending to sleep. (Colin can tell he’s pretending because he’s not snoring.)

“What did James do?” Colin asks, finally, because the question has been weighing on him since they left Logan’s party. 

Finn sighs, and Colin listens to the sheets rustle as Finn rolls on to his back. “What did he tell you?”

“That the two of you used to fool around, and that he broke things off.”

“I was fifteen.” Finn says. “He was seventeen, which was just enough older for him to seem so much cooler than he actually was. We were together for six months. Or I thought we were, anyway, but he was in the closet and as far as those toffs were concerned my sexuality was already a foregone conclusion, so we never did anything outside his room.” Finn frowns. “He called me his boyfriend. I believed him, because I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not. He’s an asshole.”

Finn huffs a small laugh. “Yeah, but I didn’t know that then. He kept talking about inviting me home to meet his family at the Easter hols. I even bought a train ticket.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t go.”

Finn shakes his head. “No. About two weeks before, one of his friends walked in on us. We were only kissing. He shoved me away, called me a poof, and then made sure everybody knew I’d thrown myself at him while he was tutoring me in maths.”

“I’m sorry.” 

Finn shrugs. “Oh, I’m sure every boarding school queer has a similar story.”

“Finn.”

“What?” Finn frowns. “It’s not like you didn’t _know_.”

“I didn’t, but that wasn’t what I meant.” Colin looks at the ceiling, because looking at Finn’s face _hurts_ , somehow. “You didn’t deserve that.”

Finn sighs and doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “You really didn’t know?”

“You never said anything!”

“But…all our friends know. Didn’t you think it was odd when not one of them questioned the fact that we’re getting married?”

“Sure, but I figured they were being polite.”

“Polite? Our friends?”

“Did you have some big coming out party and not invite me?”

“No. I just sort of…told people as it came up.”

“You’re telling me that as long as we’ve known each other it never _once_ occurred to you that you might need to tell me you’re…what?” 

“Bi. Does it actually make a difference? I’m still the same person. I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not. Why does it bother you so much?”

Finn clearly doesn’t expect an answer, judging from the way he twists away, his back to Colin. Colin doesn’t know if he has an answer. Not one that makes sense, anyway. 

“I hate that he hurt you,” Colin says softly.

“I got over it. He was hardly the love of my life.” 

“That’s not the point.”

“I know it isn’t. But I’m fine, Colin. He taught me a valuable lesson.”

“Yeah? What?”

“It’s safer to be the one who cares less.”

Colin frowns at the ceiling. “That’s terrible.”

“Sure,” Finn agrees. “But it’s true.”

* * *

Colin can’t stop thinking about it for weeks after the party. _It’s safer to be the one who cares less_. Finn’s right, of course. It is true, but it turns Colin’s stomach to hear it, to know that thanks to some English twat, Finn learned that lesson at fifteen.

Or maybe it’s because Colin knows, deep down, he is never the one who cares less. He’s not sure he knows how to be, not where Finn is concerned. He was the one who’d sent Finn that first awkward email after Finn was expelled from Zugerberg, who had invited Finn to just about anything to keep him in Colin’s orbit, and when he’d been deciding between Yale, where both he and Finn had been accepted, and Princeton, where a long line of McCrae men before him had gone but Finn hadn’t even applied...well, Colin picked Finn.

“You’re thinking thoughts far too deep for breakfast,” Mary says, coming into the kitchen on a waft of Chanel No. 5 and motherly disapproval. He hopes his own mother chooses to skip the wedding; he’s legitimately worried about what might happen if she and Mary were to meet.

Mary pours herself a mug of coffee and tops up Colin’s before taking the seat opposite him. “Cold feet?” She asks with a wry smile.

Colin shakes his head. “No.”

“That’s something, I suppose.” Mary curls her hands around her mug. “I was surprised, when Finn told me. He’s never seemed the marrying sort.”

Colin can’t help bristling; it’s the second time that someone’s implied Finn isn’t cut out for commitment but it’s _worse_ that this is his mother. 

“He’s such a free spirit,” Mary continues, clearly oblivious to Colin simmering across the table from her. “I never imagined him finding someone who didn’t see that as something he needs to change.”

Colin frowns. “Why would anyone want him to change?”

Mary almost...smiles, or at least that’s what Colin thinks her mouth is doing. It’s clear she doesn’t _want_ Colin to know since she immediately picks up her mug to hide behind, so Colin looks down at his own coffee. 

“On that, we can agree.” Mary nods. 

Colin opens his mouth to say something, although he’s not entirely sure _what_ so it’s probably for the best that Finn emerges from the bedroom, rumpled and still looking more or less asleep. 

“Morning,” he grins, and smacks a loud kiss on Colin’s cheek for his mother’s benefit before slurping several sips of Colin’s coffee.

“Hey!”

Finn only smirks and goes to dig around in the fridge. Before long, he’s scrambling eggs and frying bacon. Colin wants to linger, to sit at the kitchen table with Finn and eat a leisurely breakfast and then he wonders _where_ this has come from, because he’s never wanted to do things like that with anyone. Not even when he and Jennifer were living together did he ever find any enjoyment in domesticity. His eyes track Finn as he moves around the kitchen, and Colin can’t help feeling a sudden burst of affection towards him. 

When he turns back to his rather depressing slice of toast, Mary is watching him with a knowing expression on her face, and Colin feels his face grow warm.

“I should get to work,” he says, looking at his watch to convey, yes, he _is_ in a hurry.

“Don’t forget we’ve got the tux fitting this afternoon,” Finn says. “Well, I have a tux fitting. _You_ have a kilt fitting.”

“Ugh,” Colin groans. “Don’t remind me.”

He walks to work. Normally he’d drive, but he doesn’t actually have anything on his calendar today except the stupid fitting. The wedding is only two weeks away now and despite telling Mary his feet aren’t cold, he is feeling...uneasy.

Not because it’s probably the dumbest idea either of them has ever had (which it is) or because he’s worried about the legalities of getting caught (which he is). 

Because he’s pretty sure he’s in too deep. Somewhere along the way, he lost sight of the fact that this is just a favor to a friend, a mutually agreeable plan to keep Finn in the country. He cares too much.

He’d known, dancing with Finn at that awful party, nearly kissing him. God how he’d _wanted_ to do it. And Colin’s not really sure what to do with that, because this hasn’t ever happened to him before.

Except.

There’d been one night, at Yale: Finn’s Tarantino party, after things had died down and everyone had left. They were so, so drunk, and a little stoned, and Colin’s still not solid on exactly what happened, except that he remembers Finn pushing him up against the kitchen cabinets, and the taste of gin and weed and Twizzlers on Finn’s tongue, and Colin had been...Colin. He’d turned it into a joke, into something that didn’t mean anything, and neither of them had ever brought it up again. He’d even tried to pretend that it was so meaningless he’d forgotten it happened. But Colin isn’t that good of a liar, even when he’s just lying to himself. 

He sleepwalks through his workday, sending emails he can’t really remember writing and taking a long lunch. He half-expects his father to appear in his office doorway, demanding to know what’s _wrong_ with him. Except Colin’s father would have no way of knowing, because Colin is never anything but totally, wholly fine. It’s easy for Andrew to get away with, considering boarding school had done all his parenting.

And...is anything wrong? Nothing is new, nothing has changed. Colin is still going to marry Finn, because Finn needs a visa and Colin needs Finn. He’s just going to feel more conflicted about it than he’d originally anticipated. 

* * *

“Sorry, sorry,” Colin apologizes as he walks into the tailor’s shop. He’s late, and Finn is leaning against the cashier’s counter, loose-limbed and not in the least annoyed.

“See,” Finn smirks, “I told you he’d be late.”

Colin rolls his eyes. “Shall we get this over with?”

“Darling,” Finn pretends to be affronted, “you’re going to give me a complex. It’s almost as if you don’t want to marry me.”

“It’s not you,” Colin tries to joke. “It’s the kilt.”

Fitting a kilt, it turns out, takes all of five minutes. It helps that the last person to wear it was Colin’s father, and they’re about the same size.

Finn’s tux takes longer, naturally, since it’s bespoke. It’s so _Finn_ , dark navy and patterned in paisley the same color so you can’t even see it unless it catches the light just right.

Colin’s mouth goes a little dry watching, especially when Finn winks at him in the mirror.

“Will I do?” Finn asks, when the tailor has finished pinning and marking a few spots with chalk.

“You’ll do.” Colin agrees. 

Finn cocks his head and looks at Colin in that way he does sometimes, serious and piercing like he can read Colin’s thoughts. “Are you okay?” Finn asks. “You sound…off.”

Colin shrugs. “Long day.”

Finn eyes him like he’s not sure he believes him, but only shrugs. “You’ll be pleased to know, then, that Mum’s out of our hair for the evening. Dinner with some old school friend of hers, she told us not to wait up,” Finn waggles his eyebrows suggestively. 

“Gross,” Colin winces. 

“Take your mind off it by deciding what you want for dinner while I change out of this penguin suit.” 

Finn disappears into the changing room and Colin sits in one of the waiting area chairs, flipping through emails on his phone. Nothing earth-shattering has happened at the office since he left, and he probably should go back for an hour or two but his calendar is empty and he’d just be finding busywork for himself for the sake of appearances. 

It’s double dumpling day at their favorite dim sum place, so Colin orders from his phone, finishing just as Finn appears, back in his regular button-down and jeans, his coat draped over his arm. Problematically, Colin can’t help thinking he looks even better this way than he does in a bespoke tuxedo.

The air outside is crisp and cool, Colin’s favorite kind of autumn evening, and he can’t help leaning into Finn a little as they make their way from the tailor towards home. Finn throws an arm across Colin’s shoulders, easy for him to do given how much taller he is, and Colin doesn’t mind that it slows their pace considerably.

They stop to pick up their food, and Mr. Song gives them extra scallion pancakes with a wink at Finn.

“Is there anyone in our neighborhood you haven’t totally charmed?” Colin asks.

Finn grins, “Bodega Eyepatch Guy, but he’ll come around.”

“Maybe sooner if you didn’t call him Bodega Eyepatch Guy.”

Finn laughs, and bumps Colin’s hip with his own. “Where should we go on our honeymoon?”

“Are we having a honeymoon?”

“It will seem strange if we don’t.”

It’s a fair point; neither Colin nor Finn has ever been known to do anything halfway. “Hawaii?”

“You hate the beach. And the sun.”

“You don’t.”

“Yes, but I also don’t want you getting skin cancer and dying at forty. So, where are we going?”

“Switzerland.” Colin says, without thinking. 

“Switzerland.” Finn repeats. 

“You know…tour the old haunts, rent a chalet, ski. You won’t even have to dig your skis out of storage.” They’re still propped against the wall in the corner of the living room; they may as well just stay as a permanent part of the decor. “Although I should probably check with my PT whether my knee will hold up to Alpine skiing, huh? It would really put a damper on the honeymoon to re-tear my ACL.”

Finn doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “why Switzerland?”

“It _is_ where we met, darling,” Colin says, badly imitating Finn’s accent.

Finn gives him a shove. “Switzerland it is, you sap.”

The apartment— _their_ apartment—is quiet and thankfully already empty of Finn’s mother when they get home. They eat their dumplings on the couch, trading the cartons back and forth and watching _Snatch_ while Colin, on a roll now, mimics all the accents. 

“You don’t sound anything like them,” Finn laughs.

“Well, you’re the actor, not me.”

“Excuse you, I am a _thespian_.”

“Oh yes, of course, regale me with some Shakespeare, my thespian friend.”

“Out, damned spot,” Finn mumbles around the entire dumpling shoved in his mouth.

“Why don’t you act anymore?” Colin asks before he can stop himself. This has, for a long time, been one of the subjects they don’t discuss. 

Finn chews slowly on another dumpling, his eyes still on the TV like he didn’t hear, but Colin knows he did. For a long moment, they both just stare at the screen, Brad Pitt posturing unintelligibly, and then Finn sighs. “I went on auditions. For awhile.”

“You did?” Colin asks, surprised. “When?”

“First few years after Yale. I never got any of the stage parts…but there was a film. Well...a series of films. My agent—

“You have an agent?”

“Sort of. She’s not doing a whole lot, at the moment.” Finn runs a hand over his face. “She said it was going to be a career-maker.”

“And…?” Colin frowns. “Did you not get it?”

“I got it. I turned it down.”

“Why?”

“It was in LA.”

“So?”

“It was probably a multi-year project.”

“At the risk of sounding repetitive... _so_?”

“I didn’t want to move to LA. I’m happy here.” Finn shrugs. “And I’m not a film actor. I’m a stage actor.”

“Sorry, but that is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard, Finn. You’re not happy.”

Finn snorts. “Shows what you know.”

Colin punches the power button on the remote angrily, the living room suddenly silent. “Nothing makes you happier than acting. I remember the way you used to be, on stage, performing.”

“No you don’t.” Finn scoffs. “None of you ever fucking came, not after the cross-dressing MacBeth debacle.”

Finn had played Lady MacBeth in a gender-swapped production sometime in their sophomore year and although both the _Daily News_ and the _Register_ had given him rave reviews, Logan and Robert had turned it into something of a joke. He’d stopped inviting them to the shows after that, although Colin still went and sat in the back. He never told Finn about it, but maybe he should’ve. Finn was the kind of actor who could truly make you believe he was Lady MacBeth or (Colin’s favorite) Algernon Moncrieff—too good to just stop.

“Of course I did.” Colin frowns. “I went to all of them, even the shitty student-written one acts and the deeply depressing Ibsen.”

Finn blinks, surprised. “You never said anything.”

“You stopped talking about it. I figured you wanted it that way.”

Finn snorts. “Of course. How could I forget, that’s the Colin McCrae special.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re an avoider. Anything you don’t want to talk about, anything uncomfortable or awkward, you pretend it hasn’t happened and ignore it until it goes away.”

Colin scowls. “Like you’re any better. You didn’t want to tell your own mother we were getting married.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Colin.” Finn slumps back into the couch and huffs out a frustrated sigh. “I’m talking about between _us_.”

“What do you mean,” Colin asks, half-sure he already knows the answer. 

“Junior year. The Tarantino party.” Finn says, not looking at Colin. 

Something heavy settles in Colin’s stomach. For the better part of a decade, he’s been sure they’d made a _mutual_ decision not to bring this up, that it was an unspoken rule between them not to rock the boat. 

“We were wasted, Finn.” Colin says weakly. 

The look Finn shoots him is equal parts disgust and disappointment. “Sure,” he says, coldly. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself to make it okay, we were wasted. Properly rat-arsed. Of course, we were wasted a lot, almost every night. Are you sure it wasn’t something else? The weed, maybe, or all that candy? Or was it the Tarantino costumes? I think I’ve still got mine, if it really gets you going I’m sure I can find it somewhere.”

“Finn.” 

“What?” Finn snaps.

“I didn’t—you never brought it up either.”

Finn huffs out an annoyed breath and looks up at the ceiling, “Yeah, well, you kissed me so I guess I was still just following your lead.”

He gets to his feet and starts collecting the paper cartons from their dinner, carrying them to the kitchen. Colin’s not done eating, but he grabs the rest and follows Finn.

“Did I?” Colin asks, surprised. “I always thought it was you who kissed me.”

Finn moves several things inside the refrigerator, trying to make room for their leftovers. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

“I remember enough.”

“Apparently not.”

“Well, how do you remember it, then?”

Finn shrugs. “We were cleaning up after the party, and you kept trying to throw things into the garbage can and missing—I mean, you can barely aim when you’re sober—

“I know.”

“And I got annoyed, so I pushed you.”

“Yeah,” Colin says. He remembers that part; he’d had a bruise on his ass from one of the drawer pulls. 

“I figured you were gonna shove back, but you pulled me toward you instead.”

Colin squints, tries to remember. “Pulled you how?” His voice sounds strange, almost faraway, and his neck is warm. Finn slams the fridge door, the contents rattling, and Colin startles.

“Like this,” Finn says, grabbing the front of Colin’s shirt and tugging roughly. Colin stumbles forward, close enough now that he can see the way Finn’s eyes are dark and a little wild. He watches the rapid rise and fall of Finn’s chest, and has a sudden urge to dip his tongue into the hollow at the base of Finn’s throat.

Which is exactly how it had gone that night, he realizes. The thought had flitted through his brain, and for once he’d been drunk enough or stoned enough to not overthink it, and he’d just acted.

Jesus.

Finn lets go of him as abruptly as he’d grabbed him, and takes a few steps back. “It was like that.”

“Two sides to every story, I guess.” Colin says.

Finn rolls his eyes. “I think we _just_ established you don’t remember enough to have a side.”

“You sure?” Colin says. His heart is racing, he can hear it thudding in his ears. “Because I do remember standing basically where you are; except, you know, imagine it’s our shitty Yale kitchen. And it was more like this,” he steps forward, closing the distance between them, pressing his body flush against Finn’s.

“Does it really matter?” Finn asks, his forehead wrinkling in a frown that doesn’t quite make it to his mouth. 

“Guess not,” Colin says, and before he can lose his nerve he wraps a hand around the back of Finn’s neck and pulls him down into a kiss.

It’s perfect for about ten seconds, and then Finn is pulling back and pushing Colin away. 

“No,” he says. “We’re not doing this again.”

And then he walks out, the door slamming heavily behind him.

* * *

Finn doesn’t come home. Instead, he sends a text that Colin is still wide awake to receive at one in the morning. 

_At Logan’s_ , it says. _Need space_. 

Colin wonders how much space. Logan’s could mean the New York loft, or the condo in Miami, or even London. Although Colin doubts Finn needed to put an entire _ocean_ of space between them. 

At four, he emails his assistant and asks her to reschedule his meetings for the day. He’d much rather stay in bed feeling sorry for himself than go to work.

At five, he remembers at some point Finn’s mother is going to return from her night out, and his desire to stay in bed swiftly disappears. He stumbles into the shower, washes quickly, and skips shaving in favor of pulling on jeans and a sweater and getting out of the apartment before his future mother-in-law shows up. 

Although, she’s only his future mother-in-law if this wedding is still happening, of course. Colin feels more than a little sick at the thought that it might not. 

Short on options, he takes the elevator down to the underground parking lot and climbs into his car. Finn’s is still parked in the spot next to Colin’s, so he figures he hasn’t gone far. Then again, nobody drives their own car to the airport, so it doesn’t exactly rule anything out. 

Sitting in the driver’s seat, he realizes he has nowhere to go. People call their friends when things like this happen, when their partner walks out in the middle of the night with no indication of when they’ll be back.

But Colin doesn’t have friends. Not the kind you call when you need someone to commiserate with. He just has Finn, and literally until this second that was all he needed.

He starts the engine. May as well go nowhere.

They’d hired a driver to take them to the tiny Connecticut town last time, but Colin still has the address in his phone. Recovering from knee surgery, the most help he could offer in planning last fall’s stunt was the laptop-logistics, renting cars and booking hotel rooms, sourcing the fog machine and researching the best way to spring the whole thing on Gilmore (the last had been the hardest—her ancient coworkers never replied to emails and barely answered the phone, so they’d had to fly by the seat of their pants a bit in the final days before arriving in Stars Hollow).

It’s not a long drive, really, once he gets out of the city. He’s going against rush-hour traffic, which helps. 

It’s easy to find a parking space once he rolls into town, down one of the side streets off of the town square. It’s only when his thumb hovers over Gilmore’s number on his phone that he realizes she might not even be here. She was just crashing with her mom last spring. 

He calls anyway. She answers on the third ring. “Colin?”

“Hey, Gilmore,” he says. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just happened to be in your neighborhood, figured I’d look you up.”

“Whatever the joke is, I’m not getting it.”

“No joke, I swear. There’s a gazebo, and the tiniest grocery store I’ve ever seen, and a big church—

“None of that is exactly proof, you know. You were here last year.”

“Well, the last time I was here they weren’t advertising the Knit-a-Thon…wait, really? That’s a thing? Why is that a thing?”

Rory sighs heavily. “Okay. I believe you’re in Stars Hollow. _Why_ are you in Stars Hollow?”

He bites the bullet. “Finn and I had a fight. Turns out I don’t really have a lot of other friends.”

“I’ll meet you at Luke’s in twenty minutes,” Rory says. After a beat, she adds, “That’s the diner. Ignore the hardware sign.” 

Colin turns off his engine and gets out of the car. It takes him all of two minutes to find the diner, but there are worse places to wait, so he goes inside and sits at the counter. He orders coffee from a guy in a plaid shirt and a backwards baseball cap who scowls at him the whole time, so Colin doesn’t order pancakes even though he wants them.

He looks over his shoulder every time the bell above the door jingles, and the fifth or sixth time, Gilmore appears. She’s dressed more casually than he’s seen in a long time, in jeans and sneakers and a blue sweater that brings out her eyes (and the dark circles beneath them). She’s pushing a stroller, which for a long moment does not compute. Especially when she reaches the counter and Colin can see there’s actually a baby strapped in, sleeping.

“Hey,” the grump in plaid says to Rory, suddenly not scowling anymore. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah. He’s asleep, finally. Sorry, I know it was a long night.” Rory looks at Colin, finally. “Luke, this is Colin. He’s a friend of mine from Yale. Colin, Luke is my stepdad.”

“Oh, hey.” Colin says. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Luke says flatly. 

“We’re going to grab a table, catch up.” Rory tells her stepdad. “Can I get some pancakes, when you get a chance?”

“Sure thing,” Luke nods.

Colin follows Rory to a corner table, their progress impeded by about ten people, who all want to look at the baby, ask Rory how she’s feeling, is he sleeping, tell her to let them know if she ever needs anything.

“You’ve been keeping some things pretty quiet,” Colin says, once they’re settled at their table. “How old is he?”

“About three months.” Rory smiles gratefully at the teenaged waitress who pours coffee into her mug. 

“Does Logan know?” Colin asks, because asking _is he Logan’s_ seems wrong.

“Yes.” Rory says. “We’re still trying to figure things out. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”

He remembers the way Logan had looked at the party he threw them, and Colin suspects this is the reason why. 

“We’re not really…close like that anymore.” Colin’s not sure they ever were. In college, their friendship was grounded in debauchery, mischief, and the incredible amount of wealth they pissed away at every opportunity. Now, it’s primarily sustained on nostalgia for those days, nothing more.

“Honestly,” Rory says, “that’s a relief. I really didn’t need the whole Yale crowd involved in our business.”

Her stepdad brings two plates stacked with pancakes, like somehow he knew Colin wanted to order them before. 

“Thanks,” Rory says, and he gives her what Colin suspects is a rare smile. 

After a few minutes of buttering pancakes and pouring syrup, Rory looks across the table at him with the sort of no-nonsense expression he remembers vividly from nights at Yale when she was trying to study and they all tried to distract her. 

“All right, tell me why you’re really here.”

“Finn and I aren’t really together, we’re just getting married because he can’t get a visa. Except I think I’m in love with him.” Colin tells his pancakes. Rory doesn’t say anything, and when he finally looks up at her, she’s clearly fighting a smile.

“What?”

“I could’ve told you that last part.”

Colin shoves a large bite of pancakes in his mouth to avoid having to say anything. But Rory just waits, watching him patiently. 

“Yeah, it seems like you’re not the only one.” He says, finally.

“It happens.” Rory smiles. “For what it’s worth, I imagine the visa situation made things a little murkier.”

“No,” Colin says. “That’s always been pretty straightforward. He needs a visa to stay, and I need him.”

“And, let me guess, you’ve told him none of this.”

“What am I supposed to say? Hey, Finn, I didn’t know I _like_ dudes, or even that _you_ like dudes, but I’m in love with you and I want this sham marriage to be the real thing?”

Rory shrugs. “I don’t see why not. Although…did you _really_ not know? I knew. Logan knew. Even Rosemary and Juliet knew, and if they did—

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Somehow everyone in the world knew I’m in love with Finn before I did.”

“Didn’t you think it was weird when nobody questioned you guys getting engaged?” 

Colin sighs heavily. “Yes, but we have weird friends. If I read into all their individual thought processes all the time, I’d never get anything done.”

“Or you would’ve figured this out much, much sooner.”

The baby starts to whimper, and then full out cry, and Rory hurries to lift him out of the stroller. “It’s okay, Rory-boy,” she says, doing that bouncing thing he always sees people do to try to soothe babies. It seems to work, because he quiets. 

“You named your kid Rory?”

“Well, I couldn’t name him Lorelai.” She says it wryly, like there’s some joke he’s missing, and there probably is. Apparently there’s a lot he’s been missing over the last decade or so. 

“What did you fight about?” Rory asks. 

“Huh?”

“You said you and Finn had a fight. What was it about?”

“Oh.” Colin shoves another bite of pancakes into his mouth and chews slowly to buy time. “His acting career, why he didn’t move to L.A. when he got offered a multi-film deal, whose fault it was that we kissed after his Tarantino party in college, and then whose fault it was that we never talked about it after that. And maybe I kissed him again to prove I remembered how the first one happened.”

“Maybe?”

“Okay, fine, I did _._ ”

“And how did that go?”

“He stormed out. He’s at Logan’s, apparently, although that doesn’t exactly narrow things down for me. I lost track of all the Huntzberger property holdings years ago.”

“I doubt he went far.” Rory says. “Or that he’ll be gone long.”

“Easy for you to say,” Colin scoffs. “You’re not the one he walked out on.”

“Did you call him?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think you should?” Rory asks, like this is obvious. 

“No. I want to delay the inevitable as long as possible, thanks.”

Rory looks unimpressed. “And the inevitable is…?”

“He calls the whole thing off and decides going back to Australia isn’t so bad after all.”

“I guarantee you he isn’t going to do that. Call him. Apologize. Tell him everything you told me.” Rory looks at her watch, “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“Martha’s Vineyard.”

“What?”

“I’m going to visit my grandmother. I was supposed to leave two hours ago, but you and Rory had other plans.”

Rory returns baby Rory to his stroller and Colin follows her to the counter miserably. He covers their check while she hugs Luke goodbye.

“Drive safe. Call us when you get there.”

“Of course,” Rory agrees, and her stepdad kisses the top of her head. 

Colin follows her out, and she hugs him too. “I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“If it’s happening,” Colin protests.

“It’s going to be my first weekend away since Rory was born,” she says. “It’s _happening_.”

Colin appreciates her conviction, even if it is overly optimistic. He watches her drive off, and then he crosses the street to the gazebo and sits on one of the benches.

When he pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket, the screen is filled with notifications, mostly missed calls and texts from Finn. His phone starts ringing again in his hand, Finn’s picture on the screen.

“Finn? What’s wrong?” 

“What’s wrong?!” Finn sounds panicked, and Colin’s heart leaps into his throat. Something happened—to his father, or Finn’s mother, or Ivy—because Finn is never anything but cool and flippant. Nothing rattles him. “Where the fuck are you, Colin? I come home and the apartment is empty, your car’s gone, Mum says you weren’t here when she got home, Cara says you’re not at work—I was about to start ringing hospitals, you absolute arse.”

“Hospitals? Jesus, Finn, I’m fine.”

“Great, that’s just perfect, isn’t it? I was imagining your car wrapped around a tree—

“In New York City?” 

“But you’re _fine_ , so obviously I was an idiot to worry.”

“That’s a little rich coming from someone who walked out in the middle of the night—

“Middle of the night,” Finn scoffs. “It was _eight_. And I texted you where I was! The least you could’ve done was write a note before you fucked off to wherever you are.”

Colin shouldn’t laugh, but he wants to. Finn was worried about him. Finn, who worries about nothing, was worried about _Colin_. 

“I’m in love with you,” he blurts. 

Finn inhales sharply. Colin can picture him exactly, somewhere between their kitchen and their bedroom because Finn always paces when he’s on the phone, his mouth gone slack in surprise. It’s not often that anyone is capable of rendering Finn speechless, and if Colin weren’t so nervous about what Finn’s going to say, he might actually revel in it for a minute. 

“Colin, c’mon.”

“I know you think I’m joking. I can understand why you’d think that.” Colin frowns. “I’m not, though. I’m in love with you. I know what I did last night was stupid and probably a little cruel and the totally wrong way to try to tell you any of this. I’d like to go back time and punch my dumb twenty-year-old self in the face for not realizing what was happening between us after that party, for turning it into a joke, because you weren’t joking, were you?”

“No,” Finn says. “I wasn’t.”

Colin wonders what might’ve been different if Finn had told him that then, hadn’t let him ignore it or laugh it off or pretend it didn’t happen. He knows himself well enough to put a stop to that line of enquiry pretty quickly. Nothing would’ve been different. Or, nothing good, anyway. Finn wouldn’t have been able to _tell_ him this. He needed to learn it for himself. He’s just lucky Finn waited this long.

“Darling,” Finn says softly and Colin’s stomach jolts. “Please just come home.”

* * *

Finn’s waiting on the couch when Colin comes through the door after breaking every speed limit between Stars Hollow and the city.

“Hey,” he says, feeling suddenly awkward. He stepped over the threshold into unfamiliar territory; until about twelve hours ago, he would’ve thought that was something that didn’t exist between him and Finn. Finn’s been more familiar to Colin than anyone else Colin knows since they met. 

“Hey,” Finn says. He looks at Colin for a long moment. “Where did you go?”

It’s not what he expected Finn to say. “Stars Hollow. I dropped in on Gilmore. Did you know she has a _baby_?”

“Yeah, actually.” Finn shrugs. “I ran into her…five months ago? Six? She was in the city meeting a publisher and she was out-to-here pregnant.” He holds his hand out to demonstrate. “Logan’s.”

“Yeah. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We weren’t…uh.” Finn gets to his feet and turns away from Colin, sheepish. “I wasn’t speaking to you at that particular moment in time.”

“You weren’t?”

“You’d just gotten engaged to Jennifer.” 

“Oh.” Colin says. Finn had gone a bit AWOL on him after that. Not for long. A few days, a week at most. It happened sometimes, and Colin had never really questioned it. 

“You’d better not be fucking with me, Colin.” Finn says, and when he turns back to Colin he’s glaring. “It’s one thing when I break my own heart over you. If _you_ break it—

“Finn,” Colin’s voice is raw and he’s closing the distance between them before he even really registers it. Colin reaches for him, his hands curling around Finn’s hips. Finn resists for a long second, and Colin knows they’re going to have to talk about it someday, the myriad ways he hurt Finn without even trying. 

“I’m not fucking with you,” Colin promises. “Not anymore.”

Finn’s face softens, and the last of the tension from their argument seems to roll off of him. “I love you too,” he says. “I have for a long time. I was afraid to tell you; I thought it would ruin everything.”

“It probably would’ve.” Colin admits. “Only because I’m an idiot.”

Finn smirks. “On that, at least, we can agree.”

Colin can’t resist it, then, taking a final step forward and leaning up to kiss Finn.

“Oh good, you boys sorted things out.”

Colin startles and turns to find Mary dressed in yoga clothes, watching them with a wry smirk on her face. Colin’s never really seen much of a resemblance between Finn and his mother until just now. 

“I forgot you were here,” Finn groans, but he doesn’t let go of Colin.

“Don’t mind me,” Mary bustles past them. “I’m just going to yoga. And then probably a very long lunch.” She hurries out of the apartment, pulling the door closed firmly behind her.

“Oh god.” Colin laughs. “Are we in high school? Your mom just caught us kissing.”

Finn shudders. “Stop. I need to cleanse this moment from my brain entirely or I’ll never be able to kiss you again without thinking about my mother.”

“Well,” Colin says, “I can think of some ways to help you forget.”

Finn kisses him again, hard and a little demanding. Finn is testing him, Colin thinks, and Colin probably deserves that. So he kisses back with all he has, because he doesn’t know any other way to convince Finn he’s serious about this. 

Because he is. He wants Finn more than he’s ever wanted anyone, more than he thought he _could_ want someone. Colin’s had his fair share of partners, but nobody has mattered to him the way Finn does, and that makes more of a difference than he realized. 

He pulls at Finn’s shirt ineffectually. He wants to see him and touch him and taste him.

“Buttons,” Finn says against Colin’s mouth. Finn starts unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt and Colin starts at the bottom, his hands shaking a little. It’s only then that he registers he’s nervous. He pushes Finn’s shirt off his shoulders and Finn lets it drop on the floor. Colin looks at him for a long moment, at the curve of his shoulders and the sharp angles of his collarbones, the ridges of his hips and the flat plane of his stomach. He’s seen Finn like this before, of course—literally every morning since they moved in together—but he’s never really _looked_.

There’s a pink scar on Finn’s right shoulder from an incident involving a four-wheeler and a tree in the woods behind Colin’s house when they were sixteen, and Colin traces it with light fingertips. 

“I remember when this happened. There was so much blood.”

“Yeah, you almost fainted.” Finn laughs. “And your dad was worried my parents would sue him for negligence or something, but when he rang them to break the news my dad was worried yours would sue him for property damage. I think they agreed they were even.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You were too busy fainting and then sitting vigil at my bedside.” The expression on Finn’s face changes, mirth replaced with something more serious. “I think that’s when all this started. For me.”

“Really?” Colin asks, surprised. “That was so long ago.”

“Okay, so I guess we’re doing this.” Finn sighs and flops onto the couch dramatically, like he wasn’t the one who raised the subject in the first place. “C’mere,” he says. Colin sits next to him, tipping his face toward Finn. 

Finn rubs a hand over his face, and when he looks at Colin his mouth is a grim line. 

“We don’t have to talk about it.” Colin offers and Finn snorts. “Yeah,” Colin sighs. “I know. Typical Colin, trying to avoid the conversation.”

Instead of taking the easy dig, Finn says, “At first it was just a crush…kid stuff. But falling in love with you eventually was pretty much inevitable. You were the only person who treated me like you cared about me.”

It hits Colin like a sucker punch and if Finn can be this honest Colin owes it to him to do the same. “You’re the only person I’ve ever cared about. I’m sorry I’m not better at it. God, how can you even stand me after what I put you through the last few months? Blithely oblivious then ragingly in denial—

Finn huffs a laugh, surprising him. “Colin, I’ve known you for nearly twenty years. I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into.” His smile turns sly. “And maybe part of me thought you might eventually come to your senses…granted I thought it would take at least until the honeymoon.”

Finn takes advantage of Colin’s surprise to lean in and kiss him, gentler than before but with no less intent behind it.

“Oh, because you’re so irresistible?” Colin teases. 

“Well,” Finn smirks, “aren’t I?”

“You know, I think you might be, but I could use some more convincing.”

Finn laughs, delighted. “Oh, I’ll convince you, darling.”

* * *

Colin’s at the bar when someone taps him on the shoulder and he turns to find Gilmore beaming at him. 

“Don’t even say it,” Colin says, and she laughs. 

“I told you so,” she says anyway, reaching out to hug him. He hugs back. 

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it. “Might not have been a wedding without you.”

“I doubt that,” she scoffs. “What was it Finn said? You two have been inevitable from the start? I have to agree.”

“He also pointed out—correctly—that one of us was quite blind to that fact for the past eighteen years.” Colin grins.

“You got there in the end,” Finn says, appearing at Colin’s side. He’s flushed from several songs of enthusiastic dancing with Rosemary and Juliet, and his tartan sash is slipping off his shoulder. Colin can’t help fixing it for him, sliding it back into place, and Finn grins. He’s happily drunk, his eyes bright as he reaches for Colin, slinging his arm around Colin’s neck and reeling him in for a long, lingering kiss. 

It’s still a novelty that Colin is allowed this, and he tries not to think about how long ago he could have had it, if he’d just been more open or less afraid. Then again, maybe he _should_ think about it, every goddamn day. He wasted ten years of their lives, an entire decade they won’t get back, taking for granted that Finn would stick around. 

“Will you dance with me?” Finn asks, already steering Colin toward the dance floor. 

“Anytime,” Colin says. 

The music has slowed down enough that Colin can get away with mostly just leaning against Finn and swaying. It hasn’t been a perfect day—they’ve both spent a lot of it running interference to keep their mothers as far apart as possible after the argument at the rehearsal dinner last night, and Colin’s still wearing the stupid kilt, and Logan’s getting drunk enough quickly enough that the likelihood of him starting a fistfight with Gilmore’s date is becoming a certainty, and Callum and Hugo are almost definitely stoned given the way they inhaled an entire tray of hors d’oeuvres on their own—but it feels pretty close to perfect dancing with Finn.

“Who would’ve guessed that first day at Zugerberg we’d end up here?” Colin says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Finn says, his tone serious. “I knew from the minute I saw you I’d marry you.”

Colin laughs, “You’re so full of shit.”

“It’s true. I thought, there he is, Finn, the man of your dreams. A little awkward, five feet tall—

“I was _at least_ five-three by then,” Colin interrupts.

“—shaking your hand like this is a board room, not a dorm room, _and_ he has a Pulp Fiction poster.” Finn breaks then, laughing too hard to continue steering them around the dance floor. 

“So what you’re saying is it was _my_ costume at the Tarantino party that really did it for you.” 

“Yeah,” Finn nods. “But don’t be too flattered. I have terrible taste.”

“No worse than mine.” 

“Guess that means we deserve each other,” Finn shrugs. 

“Good thing, too. Who else would have us?” Colin asks. “And don’t you dare say Rosemary!”

“Never,” Finn laughs, and Colin leans up to kiss him. One of their friends (Juliet, probably) wolf-whistles and Colin raises his hand behind Finn’s back to flip her off. 

Weeks later, when they get the photo proofs from the photographer, it’s the picture Finn insists on getting framed and hanging in their living room. 

  
  



End file.
